“…Of higher order curvature flows of closed planar curves, the fourth order cases of the curve diffusion flow and the elastic flow are the most well-studied. Important early work includes [K,LS,LS2,L,L2,P,W,W2]. There is also the work of Giga and Ito [GI,GI2] showing that curves may lose embeddedness or convexity under the curve diffusion flow.…”